Hall of Famer Jerry Coleman, Interrupted Baseball Career to Fight in WWII and Korea, Dies at 89

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Hall of Fame broadcaster Jerry Coleman, a former second baseman for the New York Yankees who interrupted his pro career to fly as a Marine Corps pilot in World War II and Korea, died Sunday after a brief illness, the San Diego Padres said. He was 89.

Jerry Coleman (Image source: YouTube raw video)

Padres president Mike Dee said Coleman died at a hospital Sunday afternoon. “It’s a sad day,” Padres manager Bud Black said. “We’re losing a San Diego icon. He’s going to be missed.”

Coleman spent more than 70 years in pro baseball, a career that included four World Series titles with the Yankees and was interrupted by World War II and the Korean War, when he served as a Marine Corps pilot.

He flew 120 missions combined in the two wars. Coleman was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, 13 Air Medals and three Navy Citations.

Around Petco Park and on Padres radio broadcasts, Coleman was known as “The Colonel,” having retired from the Marines with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was the only major leaguer to see combat in two wars.

After graduating from high school in 1942, Coleman traveled three days by train from San Francisco to Wellsville, N.Y., to report to the New York Yankees’ Class D affiliate.

Still 17, he was too young to enlist and fight in World War II, so he got to spend the summer playing ball. After he joined the military, he flew Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers in the Pacific in World War II. He played three more seasons of minor league ball before making his big league debut with the Yankees on April 20, 1949. He was The Associated Press’ Rookie of the Year that season.

Coleman’s best season was 1950, when he was an All-Star and was named MVP of the Yankees’ four-game sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series. Among his teammates were Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto and Johnny Mize.

“We won the first game 1-0 and I drove in that run,” Coleman recalled in 2012. “We won the second game 2-1. I scored one of the two runs and DiMaggio hit a home run in the 10th to win it. In the third game I drove in the winning run in the last inning, and in the fourth game I rested.”

By “rested,” he means he went 0 for 3. “I was exhausted,” he said.

In October 1951, Coleman found out that Marine pilots from World War II were not discharged, but on inactive status and that he’d be going to Korea for 18 months. He missed the bulk of two seasons.

“Your country is bigger than baseball,” said Coleman, who added that he took his physical along with Ted Williams in Jacksonville in 1952. Williams, a San Diego native, also was a Marine pilot in World War II, but didn’t see combat duty. He did fly combat missions in Korea.

Coleman said the closest he came to being killed was in Korea when the engine in his Corsair quit during takeoff and his plane flipped.

Otherwise, he talked more about his comrades. In describing the two-seat Dauntless he flew in the Solomon Islands and the Philippines, Coleman said the gunner “was the bravest man I knew. If I did something wrong, he died, too.”

When Coleman returned to the Yankees, he hit only .217. He was sent to an eye doctor, who told him he’d lost his depth perception.

“If you’re trying to hit a baseball and you don’t have depth perception, you have a problem,” Coleman said.

He got that corrected but then broke his collarbone in April 1955. The night he came back from that injury, he got beaned.

His last season was 1957, when he hit .364 in a seven-game World Series loss to the Milwaukee Braves.

Coleman worked in the Yankees’ front office before beginning a broadcasting career that eventually brought him to San Diego.

He managed the Padres in 1980, when they went 73-89 and finished last in the NL West. Coleman was fired and returned to the booth.

“I should never have taken it,” he said. “I look at it now and see the mistakes I made. If I wanted to be a manager, I should have gone to the minor leagues and developed there.”

The Padres planned to keep Coleman’s statue at Petco Park open until 11:30 p.m. Sunday so fans could pay tribute. The team unveiled the statue in September 2012.

Coleman was known for calls of “Oh, Doctor!” and “You can hang a star on that!” after big plays. He received the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005.

“If there was any place Jerry Coleman could be Jerry Coleman, it would be San Diego, with this being a military town and with his military background,” Dee said. “The symmetry between his life and this community transcended the Padres. San Diego was Jerry and Jerry was San Diego.”

Here’s Coleman telling the compelling story of how he (and other Americans) answered the call to military service, starting with World War II:

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